Happy New Year

In honor of the end of 2017, we took the kiddo on an adventure ride to check out a pair of roads that washed out in last winter's storms and are still listed as closed.  As I had suspected, they are still a mess, but are passable by bike :)  Chad and I thought this was great fun; Nim was not so sure...

Merry Christmas Tree

Chad came to the conclusion this year that we should get our Christmas tree by bicycle.  I've been advocating this for years :)

On Sunday, we installed the trailer on the back of his bike and headed over to OSH to get a tree.  Alas, their tree corral was gone!  Apparently they had run out of trees, a full week before Christmas.  Argh.  Fortunately, there was an employee out on the sidewalk cleaning up the last remnants of their machine that puts the netting on the trees for easy transport, and she pointed out that there was a tree lot a couple of miles down El Camino that still had a few trees left.  I plotted a good bike route (as one does not, under any circumstances, want to ride on El Camino) and off we went.

Not many trees at the Pepperwood School Tree Lot, but there were a few, and all we needed was one. Unfortunately, they only took cash, and we only had a credit card on us, so I left Chad and the kiddo to guard our precious tree and time-trialed home and back to retrieve some money.  Gotta get back before it sells out from under us!

By the time I got back, they had tied the tree closed and loaded it carefully on the bike trailer.  I paid, and home we rode.  Nim led, Chad towed the tree, and I attempted to take pictures from the back while riding without dropping my phone.  (clearly a special talent)

There always is a bit of time between getting the tree home and getting everything decorated.  Nim's favorite part of that hiatus was getting new coffee beans.  The fact that we had completely run out was Chad's least favorite part.

The final result.

And, as usual, changes in the house leave the cat is quite concerned.

Anniversary

Our 10th anniversary was last month; we took that as an excuse to go down to SLO and ride our bikes.

There might have been a little celebrating with food and beverage too.  We stayed at a cute little B&B downtown; they were nice enough to have a champagne and chocolate tray ready for us when we arrived.

Since Chad had just built up his new commute/adventure/go-anywhere bike, we made a point of finding routes that normal people don't ride on bikes with drop bars,

and made it up to the Hi Mountain condor lookout despite the road supposedly being closed.  (only a little bit of hike-a-bike involved...)

It was an excellent weekend with many good views and lots of sunshine!

New word for the morning

Nim coined a word this morning that should make many of you grandparents smile:

Grandpeople

Now don't you all feel grand?